Locked Out: How a Senior Public Servant Sued Parliament House — Jo Tarnawsky | Grit Diaries

Deborah Weed: The 1943 Penny, a Health Collapse, and the Difference Between Self-Esteem and Self-Worth | Grit Diaries

> ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses mental health & wellbeing, which some listeners may find distressing. > If you need support, you're not alone — help is available: > Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au [lifeline.org.au] For ten years, Deborah climbed the corporate ladder at Citibank, building a high-profile career to escape the label of sensitivity. She learned to equate self-esteem with achievement, never smiling at her desk, performing a version of herself that felt increasingly hollow. Then came three years of debilitating, misdiagnosed illness: severe pain, hemorrhaging, doctors telling her it was MS, Lou Gehrig's disease, or all in her head. Bedridden and alone, everything she had built her identity on was stripped away. In that crisis, she heard about a 1943 copper penny worth a million dollars, and the metaphor cracked something open. She realised she had never learned self-worth, only self-esteem. She wrote a children's book, Paisley's Last Quill, about a porcupine who gives away her power piece by piece. Now she is developing a Broadway-scale musical based on the story, determined to teach others what took her a health collapse to learn. Deborah Weed is a US-based former corporate executive who spent a decade at Citibank leading multimillion-dollar projects before a three-year health crisis forced her to confront the difference between achievement and intrinsic worth. She is now a creative entrepreneur, children's book author, and founder of Quills Up, a movement centred on reclaiming personal power through self-worth. In this Grit Diaries conversation with Mon & Mazz, Deborah shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • Self-esteem is built on achievement and requires constant proof; self-worth is intrinsic and survives when everything external is stripped away. 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Introduction to Deborah Weed and her Broadway dreams 03:07 How sensitivity became a wound that drove her corporate climb 04:27 The misalignment of heart in a brain-focused corporate world 05:04 Self-esteem vs. self-worth: the distinction that matters 08:54 What true self-worth looks like when achievement is stripped away 10:47 Three years bedridden: the fracture that changed everything 13:28 The 1943 penny: the metaphor that saved her life 18:23 Paisley's Last Quill: turning pain into a story about reclaiming power 22:20 From children's book to Broadway dreams: the musical and the challenge of funding 26:01 Her father's wisdom on disappointment as the real barrier to perseverance 29:44 The cork that keeps bubbling: knowing what you're meant to do 31:22 Closing: gratitude and the power of stories that touch us 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find five podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens: • Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham • Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale • Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova • From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd • Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected. Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here. New episodes are released fortnightly. If you'd like to help us continue sharing these stories and keeping them freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate#donate [https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate#donate] Thank you for being part of this community. We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CONNECT WITH US ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://kintsugiheroes.com.au [https://kintsugiheroes.com.au] ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes [https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes] 📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes [https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes] 📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes [https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes] 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes [https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes] #GritDiaries #KintsugiHeroes #TheLastQuill #PaisleysLastQuill #QuillsUp #BroadwayDreams #FashionForest #SelfWorth #SelfEsteem #PersonalPower #Authenticity #HealthCrisis #CreativeHealing #MentalWellness #CorporateToCreative

Roula Selinas: 19 Years Post-Transplant, Two Cancers, and the One Thing She Could Control

> ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses grief, which some listeners may find distressing. > If you need support, you're not alone — help is available: > Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au > In April 2007, Rula's world fractured when she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. What followed was eight months of intensive chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant using a donor from Germany who was only 80 percent compatible. The transplant triggered graft versus host disease twice, steroid-induced diabetes, five eye surgeries, a mini-stroke, and a year-long hospital stay. Years later, just as she'd rebuilt her strength and fitness, she was diagnosed with secondary cancer. Through it all, Rula held fast to one practice: controlling what she could control-her mind. She learned to break recovery into one step at a time, lean on faith and hope, build a support network, and transform her pain into purpose. Now 19 years post-transplant, she runs a counselling practice and has written Stronger, a guide to healing from adversity. Rula Selinas is a counsellor, life coach, author, and founder of Transform Counselling and Coaching on the Gold Coast. A two-time cancer survivor who navigated acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and bone marrow transplant in 2007-2008, then secondary cancer years later, she channels her lived experience into guiding clients through adversity and building resilience. In this Grit Diaries conversation with Mon & Mazz, Roula shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • Mental control is agency: when your body is under siege, the mind is the one place… 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Welcome to The Grit Diaries 03:20 Childhood in Haverfield: Milk Bar, Books, and Belonging 08:00 After High School: Admin, Business, Personal Development 13:00 Understanding Bone Marrow Transplant and the Catch-22 of Survival 15:50 The Cascade: Graft Versus Host, Diabetes, Stroke, and What Came After 17:00 Mental Control: The One Thing She Could Govern 18:40 Ten Years to Rebuild: Relationship Breakdown and Finding Purpose on the Kayak 20:00 One Step at a Time: From Walking to Kayaking 22:50 Secondary Cancer: The Second Fracture and a Calling to Study 27:00 The Sacred Role of Support Networks and How to Ask for Help 31:00 Presence Over Words: The Power of Sitting, Silence, and Touch 34:50 Closing: Transform Counselling, Breaking Barriers, and Rula's Gift 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 🌐 CONNECT WITH ROULA SELINAS: Transform Counselling and Coaching: www.transformcounsellingcoaching.com.au ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens: • Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham • Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale • Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova • From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd • Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected. Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here. New episodes are released fortnightly. If you'd like to help us continue sharing these stories and keeping them freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate#donate Thank you for being part of this community. We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CONNECT WITH US ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://kintsugiheroes.com.au ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes 📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes 📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes #GritDiaries #KintsugiHeroes #KintsujiHeroes #gritandgrace #cancersurvivor #bonemarrowtransplant #mentalhealth #grief #resilience #supportnetwork #counselling #adversity #hope #goldcoast

Fire Horse: Going Through Fire to Become Pure Gold | Ingrid Hu Dahl | Grit Diaries

Fire Horse: Going Through Fire to Become Pure Gold | Ingrid Hu Dahl | Grit Diaries ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses grief & loss, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you're not alone — help is available: • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au • GriefLine: 1300 845 745 · griefline.org.au Ingrid grew up as a mixed-race child in New Jersey, retreating into horses and later punk rock music to survive feeling othered by adults and society. She came out as a lesbian in her mid-20s, facing rejection from her mother. Years later, after moving apart and her mother's battle with cancer, they reconciled through open-heartedness and forgiveness. In her mother's final years, despite COVID restrictions limiting visits, they rebuilt their relationship from soul to soul. After her mother's passing, Ingrid wrote her memoir and became a grief coach, learning that walking through fire refines us into gold. Ingrid Hu Dahl is an American TEDx speaker, author, ICF-certified leadership and grief coach, and lifelong musician who has toured internationally with multiple bands. She wrote Sun Shining on Morning Snow, a memoir exploring identity, grief, and reconciliation with her mother, and has directed short films on mixed-race representation and experience. In this Grit Diaries conversation with Mon & Mazz, Ingrid shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • Being othered as a child for your identity teaches you to read subtlety and energy, skills that later become invaluable in coaching and human connection. • Coming out authentically, even when facing rejection, creates the possibility for deeper reconciliation later because you refuse to diminish yourself. • Grief and identity loss can catalyze profound growth, especially when you're willing to write your story and integrate what you've learned. • Forgiveness and reconciliation often require the person who rejected you to choose openness first, but you can still hold the door… 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:00 Introduction and Ingrid's Background 04:35 Growing Up Mixed-Race on the East Coast 06:44 Horses as Refuge and Nonverbal Communication 10:13 Finding Voice Through Punk, Grunge and Riot Grrrl 13:40 Coming Out and Complex Family Dynamics 17:33 Mother's Rejection and the Long Separation 22:33 The Reconciliation Begins: Mother Reaches Out 24:35 Cancer, COVID, and Final Moments Together 26:30 The Book and Its Symbolism 28:22 Fire, Gold and the Year of the Fire Horse 31:13 Leadership Lessons and Writing Through Grief 36:34 Closing Thoughts on Authenticity and Hope 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens: • Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham • Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale • Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova • From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd • Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected. Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here. New episodes are released fortnightly. If you'd like to help us continue sharing these stories and keeping them freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate#donate Thank you for being part of this community. We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CONNECT WITH US ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://kintsugiheroes.com.au ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes 📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes 📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes #GritDiaries #KintsugiHeroes #GritDiariesPodcast #SunShiningOnMorningSnow #MothersAndDaughters #ComingOut #Reconciliation #MixedRaceIdentity #Grief #Authenticity #Leadership #Music #FamilyHealing

Locked Out: How a Senior Public Servant Sued Parliament House — Jo Tarnawsky | Grit Diaries

Locked Out: How a Senior Public Servant Sued Parliament House | Jo Tarnawsky | Grit Diaries Jo Tarnawsky entered Parliament House at 12 after winning a TV competition, carrying a dream forged in that single afternoon. She built a two-decade career as a diplomat and political operative, thriving in crisis zones and complex postings. In 2022, she returned to Australia as Chief of Staff to the Deputy Prime Minister—her childhood dream role. Within two years, she was locked out of her office, barred from her workplace, and pushed toward silence. Rather than slip away quietly, she chose to speak publicly, eventually filing suit against the Deputy PM, the PM's Chief of Staff, and the Commonwealth. The case settled on a no-liability basis in early 2025. Since then, she has redirected her energy into helping others navigate toxic workplaces through educational resources, videos, and advocacy work. Jo Tarnawsky is a career diplomat and political staffer who worked for the Australian Government across multiple continents—from Iraq to Italy to Zimbabwe—before returning to Australia as Chief of Staff to the Deputy Prime Minister. In 2024, she took the federal government to court over workplace bullying in Parliament House. In this Grit Diaries conversation with Mon & Mazz, Jo shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION: • Workplace bullying in institutional settings is often covert and sophisticated—exclusion, email omission, and exclusion from meetings rather than overt aggression—making it harder to name and easier to doubt yourself. • High performers and ethical people are targeted specifically because they pose a threat to systems that want to remain unchanged; the bullier's insecurity manifests as a need to neutralize those who shine a light. • Early intervention with human dignity, apology, and reasonable accommodation can prevent escalation to litigation; institutions that default to legal protection and risk management often create the very crisis they're trying to avoid. • Isolation is the most damaging weapon in workplace bullying; when you cannot eat in the cafeteria, access your own office, or know what's happening in your own portfolio, the psychological toll accelerates rapidly. • Children offer clarity in moments of despair; a child's simple suggestion to tell someone what is happening can become the permission slip to stop protecting the system that harmed you. • Speaking publicly about a painful experience does… 🕒 CHAPTERS: 00:31 Introduction: Workplace bullying in Parliament House 04:12 The moment at Parliament House that changed everything 09:11 Falling into diplomatic career with DFAT 12:11 Deputy Ambassador posting to Italy and family 15:42 Starting dream job and initial success 20:00 Locked out of Parliament House 24:30 The choice: be pushed out quietly or call them out 29:13 First press conference and initial requests 35:12 Final return to office and settlement 38:25 Pivoting to purposeful work helping others 42:39 Upcoming resources for safe work transitions 48:11 Book-ending: starting and ending career at Parliament with press conference 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit Australian podcast network sharing real stories of resilience and transformation. Named after the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold — the philosophy that what's been broken can become more beautiful for the mending — every episode honours the cracks, the rebuild, and the human underneath. We believe every story matters. Every scar has something to say. And every person quietly finding their way through deserves to be heard. 📺 Series on this channel: – Kintsugi Heroes — real stories of resilience | hosted by John Milham – Animals & Us | hosted by Natalie Stockdale – Grit Diaries: from Grit to Grace | hosted by Simone Allan & Maryan Bova – Golden Threads — stories of disability & resilience | hosted by Dan Dougherty ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH US ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://kintsugiheroes.com.au ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes 📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes 📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 💛 SUPPORT THE NETWORK ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Kintsugi Heroes is listener-supported and run entirely by volunteers. Your support helps us keep sharing stories that matter. ❤️ Donate (tax-deductible): https://kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate 🤝 Partner with us: https://kintsugiheroes.com.au 🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week and join a community that believes in the power of human stories. We're all in this together. 💛 #GritDiaries #KintsugiHeroes #FromGritToGrace #WorkplaceBullying #ParliamentHouse #ToxicWorkplace #MentalHealth #AustralianPolitics #CourageToSpeak #WorkplaceCulture #ConstructiveConflict ——— Show notes by Tony Bailey · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian English

Lindsay Ziehl: From Grief and Cancer to Humanitarian Change-Maker

Episode Summary Lindsay Ziehl has lived enough lives for ten people — and at 77, she’s still not done. Born in Britain and raised across Australia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, Lindsay survived two cancers, raised her son Andrew alone after her husband walked out, and was stranded in South Africa during COVID when she received the phone call every parent dreads. Rather than be consumed by grief, she channelled it into the Andrew Ziehl Foundation and a lifetime of frontline humanitarian work — training over 3,000 women escaping domestic violence and personally intervening to secure the release of trafficked women. In this conversation with Mon and Mazz, Lindsay shares two unforgettable pieces of wisdom: a rabbi’s three-word reframe, and a little cat with a frozen chicken that changed the way she saw her own strength. Episode Pillars • The Nomadic Foundation: How a childhood of constant movement across Australia, the UK and Africa shaped Lindsay’s resilience and her lifelong instinct to help others. • A Son Called Andrew: Raising him alone, letting him fly back to Australia, and receiving the phone call no parent ever expects — during a global pandemic, unable to travel. • Turning Grief Into Purpose: The rabbi’s three-word reframe — “Not why, but what now?” — and how that single shift led to founding the Andrew Ziehl Foundation. • Two Cancers and a Cat: Surviving Paget’s disease and breast cancer, riding a four-hour bus to chemo alone, and the moment a tiny cat with a frozen chicken reminded her to get back up. • Domestic Violence Frontlines: Over 25 years running shelters, training 3,000 women, and securing the release of trafficked women just one day before they were sent abroad. The Kintsugi Connection To see the visual story of Lindsay’s journey and explore more episodes of resilience, visit our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes/videos If Lindsay’s story moved you, explore these related Hero conversations: • Navigating grief and loss? Explore another Grit Diaries episode on life after unimaginable loss. • Finding purpose after adversity? Explore another episode on turning pain into action